The Bad Plus: balls the size of Tiger Woods

Among the many things I love about The Bad Plus is the fact that they aren't afraid of hooks. A lot of jazz shies away from the conventionally irresistable pop hook. The jazz establishement has this attitude that shuns hooks, looks down upon them as "low music"; base, simple, mindless easy music. The traditional jazz camp sees hooks as the cheesburger of musical expression, everybody loves them, but you know they aren't good. This is bullshit, The Beatles were all about hooks, and I'd like to see a jazz purist stand up and say they are too good for The Beatles. I think The Beatles were so succesful and popular(not to mention artistically respected) because their music was the perfect blend of accessibility and substance. They communicated what they wanted to communicate in as concise a manner as they possibly could. And the primary medium for that expression was pop hooks. There is something immediately and unquestioningly expressive about the hook. Its name really describes its form very well, they do just what they are called, they put their hooks into you. When they are right, you can't escape their grip. Think the first two bars of "Oh Darling" by The Beatles (we'll stick with the masters for now), Paul Mccartney sings the opening solo lyric and is joined by the band in the first bar. When he lands on "darling", you're done. He's got you, you're hooked, if you will. So why should the sophisticated and self-important jazz purist eschew hooks like these in place of complex and innaccessible chord progressions and musical masturbation? Its because our good friend the jazz purist is full of shit. He's no different than the monocle donning Mozart elitist who believes that the merit of music rests upon its status and its mathematical complexity.
So now The Bad Plus come along, and their undeniable chops don't let the jazz purist brush them off as unskilled "outside agitators" to the jazz world. They are as good a musicians as you will find around these days. And they get up there in the faces of the jazz purist with their enshrined Coltrane matrices and 1930's standards and yell: "Fuck you, we grew up listening to pop music and rocking out, and we fucking love it." And go on to make music that tears jazz apart at the seams as it simultaneosly sets the pop hook up as one of its primary musical middle fingers. Songs like "Velouria," "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Chariots of Fire," and an original of theirs "Lost of Love," all feature grandiose melodies with unescapable hooks. "Velouria," a Pixies cover, is one of my favorites. TBP revel in the visceral uprising of the chorus. They avoid the pretension of the tight lipped conservatism that doesn't rock out when rocking out is called for. And rock out they do. In fact, I might go so far as to say they Rock The Fuck Out. And being the deconstructionsists that they are, they proceed to tear the hook apart.
Now I don't mean to sound like the militant leftist to the dogmatic jazz conservative, but conservatism in music, and in all art, can be a dangerous thing. Art needs to breath, evolve, change. In fact you could argue that change is the essence of music and art in general. It captures and expresses the change that shapes the essence of our culture and experience. And I also don't mean to paint The Bad Plus to be some sort of self-conscious rebels whose primary purpose is to spit in the face of the jazz establishment. They may spit in the face of the jazz establishment as a result of "doing their thang" but its a by-product and a collatoral result of their art. These guys are here to stay.